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George Chose Sandy As His Partner Early 

On April 21, Sandy wrote in his diary: 

“After dinner we were all allotted to our climbing parties [...]

Norton + Somervell 1st Non Ox climb

Mallory + Self 1st Ox climb

[...]

I’m awfully glad I’m with Mallory in the first lot but I wish ever so much that it was a Non Ox attempt.” 

In the original plan, there would be four men doing the attempt, supporting each other in pairs (Norton + Somervell / Mallory + Irvine). George’s stated rationale for choosing Sandy as a partner was his oxygen expertise.

“Irvine has done the principal engineering work on the apparatus […] he has practically invented a new instrument […] so Irvine will come with me.”

“It must be Irvine”

The early plan didn’t work out because there were issues with bad weather and logistics. George ended up doing the first summit attempt with another climber, Geoffrey Bruce, without oxygen.

“Oxygen is condemned in order to save porters or Irvine & I would have been together.” 

George and Geoffrey turned back, and the team ran a second non-oxygen attempt with Norton and Somervell, who also turned back. Norton became snowblind and Somervell almost choked to death on the inner lining of his throat. George then decided that he and Sandy would make one final attempt, with oxygen. Norton admired George’s initiative, but did not support George’s choice to take Sandy, particularly when Noel Odell also understood the oxygen systems and had mountaineering expertise. 

In Everest, a Mountaineering History, Walt Unsworth explains: 

“All the logic pointed to Odell as the man who should go with Mallory. But Mallory was adamant: it must be Irvine”. 

However, Norton was exhausted and snowblind so he didn’t argue. “It was obviously no time for me to interfere with the composition of the party, and when I found that Mallory had completed his plans I made no attempt to do so.”

John Noel wrote that Mallory had only two companions to choose from: Sandy or Odell, because they were the oxygen experts. “Mallory chose Irvine [...]. Irvine had virtually taken charge of the oxygen apparatus.” 

Noel remembered that Sandy was unwell. “He was anxious and worried about the machines; and, I think, the anxiety told heavily on him because he also was far from being in good condition. He breathed heavily and with labour. We all noticed it.”

But he said the same thing about George. “Mallory remained a great deal in his tent and sleeping-bag. He looked ill and in my opinion he was “an unfit man” when, some days later he started for the mountain with Irvine to make his last effort and to meet Death.” 

These could be details that Noel noticed in retrospect, as Sandy’s diary does not describe these health concerns. “George & I both arrived at the camp very surprisingly fresh.”

Did George “like” Sandy?

I think that George probably was attracted to Sandy. George was queer, and he wrote about Sandy’s body, character, and his “nice” voice, which he said was similar to beautiful bisexual poet Rupert Brooke. 

“a splendid specimen of a man; he rowed two years in the Oxford boat as a heavy weight & yet is not clumsily made at all – he is completely modest and has a nice voice which reminds me strangely of Rupert Brooke's” 

Walt Unsworth wondered the same, and in 1977, he corresponded with George’s rumoured former lover, Duncan Grant, to ask if George was bisexual. 

“Duncan Grant, who knew Mallory well, states emphatically that he was not and he suggests that the decision might well have been taken on aesthetic grounds. Given that Odell and Irvine were both good with the oxygen sets ‘it would have been characteristic of Mallory (with his own superb proportions) to choose, of two equal objects, the more beautiful’.” 

OK. PAUSE. 

Excuse me Duncan? 

George wasn’t bisexual…but he chose Sandy because Sandy was more beautiful. 

To be clear: Duncan Grant knew George was queer. George had moved in queer circles for a long time at Cambridge and as a young man. In 1966, Duncan had been upset that a biography of Lytton Strachey had published details about Lytton’s and Duncan’s gay relationships, and Duncan had even feared arrest because gay sex was illegal at the time. Could he have been trying to protect George’s “reputation”?

George the Mentor

Julie Summers, Sandy’s great-niece, wrote a detailed biography of Sandy and gives Sandy more agency in the Mallory–Irvine story. She emphasized Sandy’s engineering skills and how George picked Sandy as a climbing partner because of his oxygen expertise. 

Summers denies, however, that George might have been attracted to Sandy. She writes: 

“Through Irvine, George could also act out the counterpart of his relationship with Geoffrey Young and his other senior mentors, this time with George initiating a younger partner into the ways of mountaineering.”

Which is kind of hilarious, given that Geoffrey Winthrop Young was gay and in love with George. 

Like her logic is: George and Sandy wasn’t a gay thing, it was just like [even more gay thing]. 

Finding Answers

I think we can conclude that George liked Sandy, and was likely attracted to him. Sandy literally seems like he was manufactured in a lab to be George’s type: young, attractive, athletic, competent, cheerful, nice Rupert Brooke voice. We can also see that Sandy was valued on the expedition, despite his inexperience, and that he was brilliant with technology. 

When I started my research for this post, I had my thesis firmly in mind: that two truths can exist at once, and that George chose Sandy because he was good with oxygen AND because he liked him. But after looking into this further, I now think that George let his emotions override his logic. 

I don’t think bringing a young man with essentially no climbing experience up Everest makes any sense, especially when Noel Odell was right there. Julie Summers’ work is important for showing Sandy’s capability, but just because Sandy was good at fixing oxygen equipment doesn’t mean he was a strong Himalayan climbing partner. The people closest in proximity and time – the actual expedition members, Duncan Grant, and Unsworth writing in the 1970s – all recognized that George made a strange decision. 

I think George chose Sandy because he liked him. 

Meanwhile, Lytton and George seem to have remained friends and continued to send each other flirty, gay, often inappropriate letters. 

June 1911: The Beard Enters the Villa: Lytton visits George at Charterhouse in June to avoid “the terrors” of the coronation of George V. Before he goes, he warns George that he had grown “a red-brown-gold beard of the most divine proportions”. 

George finally finds a publisher who wants to publish a Boswell biography he has been working on as a book. Lytton helps him with it around this time, because George later thanks Lytton in the Boswell book in 1912. 

At one point, George goes full creep mode and writes a letter to Lytton that says: “By the bye I saw at Charterhouse the other day an ancient amour of mine – which means that I was pleased to take notice of him when he was 13 – But now! a young man of 17, but still only just past the moment of pubity [sic] & with a fair skin & fair curly hair & red enticing lips! What will happen? His mother wrote me a confiding letter asking me to take care of him” 

I’m not sure of the date. I will put it here for context because I’m assuming it’s after he’s taught at the Charterhouse school for several years. He often writes about hanging out with the boys at Charterhouse to Ruth and he took several students climbing with him. The Wildest Dream book presents all of this as 100% innocent and there’s no direct evidence George did anything with his students, but clearly we can see that George was sometimes very creepy :( 

May 17, 1914 Marriage and Homosexualists Letter: George writes to Lytton about how he is marrying Ruth. 

“It can hardly be a shock to you that I desert the ranks of the fashionable homosexualists (And yet I am still in part of that persuasion), unless you think I have turned monogamist. But you may be assured that this last catastrophe has not happened. This sentiment shocks me deeply – considering that I really am to be tied by the conjugal knot & actually to be blessed by the Church of England: but then the truth always is shocking & probably nobody is monogamous.” 

In the same letter, he invites Lytton for dinner. 

“Please Lytton do come – for dinner on Saturday.”

Note: I think this letter crushes the “George Mallory was a wife guy myth”. George says that he is still of that persuasion (homosexualist), and that he is not becoming a “monogamist” even though he is getting married, so the implication is that he still wants men. Ruth seems very traditional and everything I’ve read seems like she did not know about George’s gay side and believed she was entering a monogamous marriage. 

George also writes that it’s shocking that he is going to be blessed by the Church of England. The Bonham’s auction website says that George wrote to Lytton about his day-dreams ("...I, in about the year 1930, have stood upon my trial for sodomy in defence of my conduct and playing altogether very heroic part..."), AND as we saw in the last post, Lytton joked that George was teaching his students sodomy. So I think this is why George says him getting married/blessed in a Church would be shocking. 

What’s interesting is that on the same day, George writes Ruth a long, teasing letter with many sweet words. Reading the letters side by side fills me with an uncomfortable feeling. How easily in writing he appears to slip into each role (dutiful fiance, former gay lover). How easily he can either lie to Ruth, or perhaps the opposite, suppress and justify Ruth to Lytton because he still wants to belong in Lytton’s free, gay world. It's a hard read. As Lytton once asked: who is George Mallory?

The two letters side by side...  

May 23, 1914: Lytton stays with George at Charterhouse 

Six days after the fashionable homosexualists letter, George writes to Ruth that Lytton is coming to stay overnight with him at Charterhouse. So Lytton has accepted the dinner invitation and stays overnight.  

“I am expecting a friend to arrive shortly to stay the night – one Lytton Strachey. He is very, very queer – not to me of course because I know him as a friend – but to the world. He must be very irritating to many people. My profound respect for his intellect & for a sort of passion with which he holds the doctrine of freedom, besides much love for him as a man of intense feeling & fine imagination; make me put up with much in him that I could hardly tolerate in any other. I haven’t seen him for I don’t know how long – much more than a year. I think – more like two – which for a great friend is rather a long time if you have my system with [regard?] to correspondence… 

Interval while I go to Farncombe to meet Lytton.. [...] Lytton’s next train will be due shortly. I wonder if I shall go to meet him again? – probably not! How many letters I ought to write!” 

May 24, 1914: George writes another letter to Ruth from Charterhouse

“Very lazy before breakfast with you always in my thoughts – between sleep – waking so that I wasn’t up until 9 am.“

He talked with Lytton afterwards and they read poetry, particularly The Message of the March Wind by William Morris. They are later hanging out with some of the schoolboys at Charterhouse (that’s why it says that Lytton doesn’t like boys). 

“Lunch (just now) breakfast have been rather trying – Lytton doesn’t like boys & I imagine he is very shy because he talks in a falsetto voice very often; at all events he says almost nothing in this sort of company & yet looks very striking – a man you just can’t ignore.”

“We shall walk to Newland’s Corner this afternoon, to St Lo Strachey’s & I shall leave Lytton there & hurry back to do some work or write letters which I’ve sadly neglected.”

Note: So George writes his “fashionable homosexualists” letter to Lytton, then describes him as “very, very queer” [I know that had a different meaning back then but – gurl] and “a man of intense feeling.”

But … after Lytton stays the night, George tells Ruth he was very lazy all morning because he was thinking about HER. Like LYTTON STRACHEY is here after you haven’t seen him in almost two years, six days after the “fashionable homosexualists” and we really believe he’s thinking about RUTH? I’m going to assume this is just some performative “I have a fiancee” thing. 

1921: George writes a final letter to Lytton before the first Everest expedition: Bonhams writes: The last letter of all (much of which is devoted to discussing Lytton's recently-published Queen Victoria) is, by comparison, relatively flat in tone, the epistolary magic of their intimacy having had its day. It ends: "A letter will pursue me to Tibet if you address it Mount Everest Expedition c/o Postmaster Darjeeling. Please give my love to Duncan when you see him. Yrs. ever/ George Mallory".

1924: George and Sandy Irvine join the Everest expedition.

George and Sandy had a very close relationship. They are photographed together a LOT, and George is the only older man on the expedition Sandy refers to by first name in his diary. 

I am not going to claim Sandy was into George, but it’s very obvious that George was immediately attracted to Sandy! George wrote the following while on the ship to India after he had only known Sandy for a short time: 

“My three companions de voyage, Irvine, Beetham, & Hazard are all pleasant enough & the first I particularly like – a splendid specimen of a man; he rowed two years in the Oxford boat as a heavy weight & yet is not clumsily made at all – he is completely modest and has a nice voice which reminds me strangely of Rupert Brooke's” 

Excuse me, are we reading this?? SPLENDID SPECIMEN OF A MAN .. NOT CLUMSILY MADE.. A NICE VOICE WHICH REMINDS ME OF [EXTREMELY HOT BISEXUAL POET] RUPERT BROOKE… 😭

July 27, 1927 (3 years after George’s death): Lytton writes that he found old letters from his undergraduate days including ones from “George Mallory – rather sweet”. He was also dreaming over an old “alluring” snapshot of George that he had forgotten about.

To me that again shows he has good memories of George and the things that did happen between them 🥹

____

November 30, 1909: George writes a letter from Paris to Lytton. It is extremely gay, flirty, and shows George has a crush on a man in Paris! 

”But you may perhaps find some compensation for living in Cambridge in the excellent opportunities it affords for a strenuous intellectual life: it is a great advantage too that there should be so many young men from whom to choose suitable companions. I myself have found that it is the young whom I desire (I believe this to have been your experience also) and I feel it to be a misfortune that the only young man whom I know out here is not one with whom I am ever likely to love on the most intimate terms.”

December 20, 1909: George writes an emotional letter to James. He’s clearly still in love with James. James does not appear to have replied to the letter. 

Note: Unfortunately, I can’t find the whole letter. This is all I was able to reconstruct from two different books. Some of the quotes may be out of order. 

“My dear James, Write to you I will at last. What do you think of me? That I’m proud? that I’m injured? that I’m angry? that I’ve forgotten? It is six weeks yesterday since I said goodbye to you at Hampstead and I haven’t sent you a word. I who love you! Probably you know the reason for my silence as well as I do. There has never been anything to say since the day when I told you I loved you. Am I to repeat continually the wearisome news that I want to kiss you? It is about all that I am capable of. And it is all too much for both of us.” 

“You had better forget that I was ever your lover.”

George also said he hoped James would treat him, in the time-honoured phrase, “as an ordinary friend… Do you think James, that would be possible? You’re much cleverer than I am I know, but I can understand a good deal of you, and I could understand more if you’d let me. And you understand a good deal of me—but not all yet.”

George wondered if it had been foolish to write as he did. “One can’t arrange one’s feelings. It might have been better to go on saying nothing–but I couldn’t.” 

“How pleasant it was!  For you I believe as well as for me, wasn’t it? [...] You will see that I am unhappy which I believe will be unpleasant for you. But isn’t there something also rather comforting about being loved? Or does it just make you feel you would like to kill yourself? You needn’t at all events feel like that for me. I’m not always as I am tonight. And if it is quite certain that I love you, yet I don’t love you really as much as loving goes. Now Good Night– and please my sweet James send me a line sometimes.” 

February 1910: George writes to James again saying he’s feeling rather better and has recovered his sanity. George travels in Italy and sends a postcard to Lytton from Venice asking him to come to Paris. 

George then stays in Paris for another month.

April 4, 1910: Lytton writes to Clive Bell that a letter [I think he means the postcard] came from George urging him to come to Paris and he is embittered because he is not able to go because he’s spent all his cash in having a “change” with Rupert. 

Note: Ok but Lytton is now with Rupert Brooke?! Like basically the brothers keep dating/trying to date the same guys! This is a recurring theme with them.

[Such an aside but these Rupert Brooke and Lytton letters are kind of funny and I want to explore this more later (!!!), because when I first read this I naturally assumed Rupert and Lytton were hooking up. Lytton first asks Rupert to go away with him for a week or so to a cottage on Dartmoor. Cozy cottagecore! Then he suggests a place near the sea and that it “sounds as if it might be attractive – with brigs coming in and beautiful sailor-boys.” The reason I find this is funny is because the biographies of Rupert don’t discuss this side of his relationship with Lytton at all, or these gay AF details.] 

April 9, 1910: George writes another flirty and gay letter to Lytton from Paris. It sounds like Lytton currently has many lovers/crushes. George says he’s almost forgotten about James. 

“My dear, unfortunate Lytton, you don't know how loudly I should bewail your fate if I ever had time to be sorry for anyone else. As it is I have merely to remark what a wicked old sodomite you are – with your Antinous and your Rupert and beautiful young Lamb. Yes Antinous – I never remember to have seen the whole of him – or even half of him, but I like his head – not however enough to have a cult. Do you know the Idolino in Florence? Ah! That is ravishing – the most delicate, cultured, graceful young man that ever you say – only perhaps a little too modest for you. But leave the Greeks – I’m in France and how long I’m going to remain nobody knows […] You might give a message of respectful affection to Rupert – is that permitted? And to James? Well really you know I've almost forgotten him lately.”

George goes back to Cambridge at the end of April. 

June 1910: George writes a letter to Lytton. 

My dear Lytton, 

A word I must write to you to tell of the  … 

[I can’t read the other stuff in the middle i’m already terrible at reading cursive I did try] 

I was gone from Cambridge without so much as a farewell to my friends! 

It is a queer place in all; I suppose the queerest part of it is “the staff” or rather the older members of it, 

it is monstrous really they exist – they don't merely conform to a type; they are the living essence of it in every detail, a different kind of being, as distinct from you & me as the polar bear – & rather like it. 

Well anyway it was mostly rotten luck having such putrid weather for the Wellington match today and a master apparently is a [I cannot see this word lol], or at least some masters are. 

Yrs. ever affectly [sic], George Mallory 

July 1910: George goes to the Alps and takes a 15 year old boy named John Bankes-Price with him. The boy’s parents wanted George to teach him climbing but he hurts his knee and hates climbing lol. George writes a letter to Lytton that says: 

I am in the most ridiculous state – madly energetic & too lazy to do anything but walk up mountains. I have a pleasant lazy companion - only 15 ½ & quite absurd. G. M.

I’m going to guess this letter is from this time. The Wildest Dream book makes it sound like George was annoyed by his job, but it sounds like he found John pleasant. George can be a bit of a creep with boys as we see later. Like why did he emphasize fifteen and a HALF?? I think he’s definitely trying to imply he found John attractive or something. He also hangs out with a female climber named Cottie Saunders while he is in the Alps, but even though she’s super into him, nothing ends up happening between them. 

September: George starts his job teaching at Charterhouse. 

September 19, 1910: George writes a letter to Lytton. 

"I can hardly write you a letter now – the atmosphere of you & the atmosphere of me are too far apart" 

He also writes "But have I not promised to go to Wales after Xmas & to Scotland at Easter – & that with a young lady. And oh! Yes I shall fall in love with her I suppose – & all because she can climb. Oh! woe! woe! it is all too absurd, but who knows?"

Note: Here, George means Cottie Saunders. I feel like this is him thinking he needs to be heterosexual. I don’t think he really “liked” Cottie in that way, sort of “I shall fall in love with her I suppose because she can climb” doesn’t seem like someone that excited about that prospect. 

September 26, 1910: Lytton writes to Maynard Keynes that he has received letters from the “ever-faithful” George who is now working at Charterhouse. He jokes that George is getting ready to teach his students “the Lower Sodomy”, claims George is incompetent, and may end up getting fired and have to do sex work. “After a year’s training he’s almost fit for it, but by the time he is quite it’ll probably be too late, and he’ll be so fat and heavily bearded that I shall be the only person in England capable of erecting over him.” 

October 15–16, 1910 - Lytton travels to Charterhouse to see George. An INCIDENT happens. 

October 19, 1910: James writes to Rupert in detail about the incident:

“Lytton seems to have had a hot time of it with George … I gather that on Sunday he only didn’t go right through with it out of terror that someone would come in – as there way [sic] no key to the door. But on Monday evening they had a conversation which left Lytton quite dechire. George said in fact that such things couldn’t ever be repeated. They bored him so. No, he felt no actual repulsion. He was just ‘indifferent’. Lytton hastened to agree that there was no point in anything short of actual copulation. But surely, as he was merely indifferent he’ld be obliging enough to allow that. No. Just once? No, never.  

Another one of these virgins. 

However, he was awfully upset in the end because Lytton said he never wanted to see him again on those conditions – as it would simply be boring. It appears the poor fellow had imagined all along that Lytton was deeply in love with him.” 

The Wildest Dream book adds that Lytton wrote to Duncan Grant that “the copulation never came, though there were some singular moments. He has a fond of prudery–also of  “indifference– but then why make a fuss? At least there was a conversation which left me dechire, and a little nearer love. Am I after all in love with him? I believe his feelings are as exquisite as his face. He was too charming, and his affection also killed me. I would have given worlds for an embrace, but it was too late–and I am not in love.” 

Note: Whatever happened during this weekend is so confusing and contradictory. The part that confused me at first was why James referred to George as a “virgin” when James had had sex with George! Why would he think George is a virgin!? That made me realize that James is calling George a “virgin” because he knows George never bottomed before. This also explains George’s whole “no actual repulsion, just indifference” comment.

So my thought is: Lytton wanted George to bottom for him. George refused, said the idea didn’t repulse him but he just didn’t want to. Lytton told George if that’s the case, he didn’t want to see him again. George was upset about this because he had feelings for Lytton. Lytton was conflicted because George did seem to have affection for him, but ultimately decided he wasn’t in love with George. Well, I don’t think Lytton ever was in love, given his cruel comments about George’s body and intelligence. 

The reason I think this is important to bring up is because The Wildest Dream book tries to make it sound like this incident proves George was no longer interested in men/gay sex after James, who was just of course an experiment and now we can move on to the great love story of George and his wife kinda vibe. Which I think is obviously completely untrue and not what was happening with George at all, and the whole incident with Lytton was GEORGE HAVING FEELINGS and upset Lytton seemingly only wanted him for a particular sex act.

Okay, this part was also long and hopefully it will be useful to somebody one day! There will be at least one more part about some final George/Lytton nonsense, George’s marriage, and why he was not a wife guy. 

May 27, 1909: Lytton writes to Leonard Woolf that James “proposed” to Rupert Brooke at Easter but was brutally refused. “He proposed merely for affection and didn’t even get that” (poor James). 

He then references George’s “offered to copulate” incident with James:

“At Cambridge he [James] at once found himself in Rupert’s situation. George Mallory proposed to him. – The sequel I shall for the present leave unwritten – partly because I don’t know it, and partly because – but who is George Mallory?” 

Note: It sounds like Lytton wants to be part of the sequel! The Wildest Dream book says that around this time George and James were still seeing each other, “although George confided he thought Lytton was now in love with him.” My thoughts are at this stage, Lytton had already gotten some sexual/flirtatious behavior from George after James rejected him, and was hopeful of getting more. 

June 9, 1909 - Maynard writes to Duncan that George “moves in a cloud of intrigue” and “where he’ll find himself next, heaven knows… Poor George lives in a world to which he really has no clue whatever.” 

The Wildest Dream book says that George wrote to James asking to meet and to “please don’t be angry” so clearly George was still into James, despite Lytton’s orbiting. 

June 18, 1909: Things Get Weirdly Sexual. James writes to Rupert Brooke that George is staying with them at Hampstead. He says that Lytton spends all his time trying to persuade George to rape him. “I feel that I ought to enjoy it. Shall I?” 

Note: The Wildest Dream book says that the visit was “sedate” and nothing bad happened. After reading some of Lytton and James’s other letters, I think it’s very clear that they mean “rape” in a dark humour way. 

Meanwhile, Lytton told George how pleasant it was “to find oneself with someone who really likes things.” 

July 7, 1909: George is still into James, but maybe also Lytton? George writes James two invitations on the same day. “Will you, damn you, come to lunch tomorrow?” and another one asking to call on James at 10 pm on Saturday “my pleasure, if I should find you there, could hardly be increased”. However, George also writes a letter on July 7 to Lytton! I don’t know what it says because the full letter wasn’t posted by Bonhams, but it could be evidence that George was exploring his options. 

July 16, 1909: George is perceived as stupid. James is at Cambridge and writes to Rupert that poor George didn’t distinguish himself. He thought the Norwegian playwright Ibsen was a celebrated English dramatist. “Translations? Then what language did he write in?” 

Note: This is a common theme for George. The Bloomsbury members often imply he has low intelligence, which is clearly not true when you read his writing! George loved art, music, poetry, etc. and was a true romantic at heart. But I suppose he wasn’t a match for the super witty and artistic Bloomsbury crowd. 

July 1909: George and James have sex before George goes to the Alps. George tops. 

We know this because in September, James writes to Rupert about the incident. He tells Rupert that he never had the courage to tell him that they "copulated" before George left for the Alps (lol people from that era use the word copulate non-ironically and it sends me every time).

“Poor George has returned, he tells me, from the Alps. By the way, I never had the courage to tell you that he insisted, before we parted, on copulating. No, I didn’t in the least lead him on. In fact I was very chilling. But as he seemed so very anxious & I couldn’t pretend to have all that virgin horror, I submitted. So we went through with it – in poor old Dickinson’s bed. Are you dreadfully shocked? I didn’t enjoy it much – I was rather bored. Nor, oddly, did he. He, I think, was shocked. At anyrate he shewed no desire to repeat the business. Really, you know, it’s only in the most special circumstances that copulation’s tolerable.

Note: A few things to consider here at this pivotal moment. The sex obviously doesn't sound like it was very good, but we need to remember James was in love with Rupert and was writing to him, so I don’t think he is a reliable narrator of this moment. I don’t think James is making up that the sex was awkward, but he is likely doing the most to appear attractive to Rupert “no I didn’t in the least lead him on,” seems doubtful to me and by the “most special circumstances” he likely means sex with Rupert. 

As for George’s POV – he still was in love with James, and continued to write to James after the incident, so he was not put off by the awkward sex. I also wonder if George was so anxious to have sex with James because this was right before the Alps trip with Geoffrey Young. George may have wanted to lose his virginity to the man he was really in love with. While there’s no direct evidence that I’ve found so far that George and Geoffrey had a sexual relationship, Geoffrey was an older and more experienced gay man who was clearly very into George and was paying for the Alps trip. George could have been anxious to have sex with James first, or he wanted to understand how James felt about him before he went with Geoffrey.

Of course, the other major player was Lytton. We know George was hanging out with both James AND Lytton in June, and still writing to both of them in early July. He may have been trying to figure out all of these relationships before he left. 

July 29, 1909 - George goes to the Alps with Geoffrey Young. Geoffrey pays for the trip. 

August 7, 1909 - George writes a letter to James from the Alps trip. Nothing juicy, just about climbing mountains, but clearly he’s still thinking about James. 

August 21, 1909 - Lytton writes to Leonard Woolf about George. He says George has finally put him out of love with Duncan Grant and has made him more or less content. He describes George’s beauty in over-the-top detail. 

“His body – vast, pink, unbelievable – is a thing to melt into and die. I have melted, but, so far, I haven’t died. Perhaps I hardly want to – kisses seem almost to be enough. Gracious heavens! That’s something to have lived for, to have known. Need I say that I’m not in love? No more than I was in love with Swithin – it’s been all joy. He’s a child – innocent and in love with James and charming and affectionate – oh, come and see!” 

The Wildest Dream book says around this time Lytton writes to Duncan saying it’s hard to make any plans because “at the back of every expectation there’s always George.” 

Note: In the letter to Leonard, Lytton is remembering something that happened between him and George before George went to the Alps. I can’t find the exact dates but Wildest Dream says George left Zermatt on September 3 so George was still in the Alps when Lytton was writing about how vast, pink, and unbelievable he was lol. It sounds to me like at least kissing happened (kisses seem almost to be enough), perhaps more “I have melted, but, so far, I haven’t died”, but not a full “copulation”. Lytton also is not in love with George and sees him more as a hookup. 

October 9, 1909: George writes a letter to Lytton that begins “So you too, Lytton have fallen a victim. How charming he must …” I can’t read the rest, as the full letter isn’t posted. I’m going to assume that he’s teasing Lytton about another of his crushes. It sounds like they were sort of having a flirty relationship, nothing serious, and both chasing after other men. 

October 21, 1909: Lytton writes to Vanessa Bell that he is staying in George’s old rooms at Pythagoras House and that it is delightful to live among such memories. To me, this implies there are memories to ‘remember’ and things definitely went down here between them at some point! 

Lytton then says that the first meeting with George was a sad shock because his beauty had vanished and he is “far too fat” but he “soon forgot all that in the contemplation of his exquisite soul”. [I’m genuinely confused how GEORGE MALLORY was ever fat, especially if he was climbing in the Alps a few months ago, but okay Lytton]. 

November 6, 1909: Lytton writes to James that he is miserable because George has left and “the sunshine has gone out of my life”. He says they “parted in something of a mist” that was chiefly his fault. “It’s not only the love affairs that are bound to fail! – And now I shall never see him again, or if I do it’ll be an unrecognisable middle-aged mediocrity”. 

Note: I think the implication here is that Lytton was trying to have intimacy with George without “love” (hence it’s not only the love affairs that are bound to fail). 

TL;DR: Okay that was actually a lot, but I think the main point here is that it seems obvious that George and Lytton had a physical relationship. No, they did not have a “full copulation” nor were they deeply in love, but things were definitely happening between them! The Wildest Dream book completely fails to recognize this. I think some Bloomsbury historians do, but they don’t dive into the situation as deeply as we did here.